Good Monday morning, friends!!! I hope you all had a great weekend … you look a bit tired this morning, though. It was the first weekend of official spring, though you could have fooled me. We were predicted to get a big snowstorm … they were issuing warnings and predicting gloom and doom all the way to Wednesday. And we got … nuthin’. Well, it did snow all Saturday, but not a bit of it stuck to the ground. I am grateful, I suppose, though frankly I was looking forward to playing in the big fluffy snow and ended up feeling just a bit cheated. Now, if we could move onto some warmer temperatures?
Well, since it is Monday, I suggest you grab some coffee and a donut (yes, Steve, donuts are back on the menu) and let’s have a laugh or a few chuckles before starting our week, shall we? You’ll be happy to know I will be working hard this week, too, as I am behind on taxes and the deadline looms …
He tawt he taw a … puppy dog?
One day Mr. Yang was scavenging for mushrooms in the mountains near his home in Yongsheng county, Yunnan province, China, when he came across an adorable puppy! Who could resist, right? I couldn’t have resisted it (does this explain to you why we have the Significant Seven?). So, he did what most of us would have done and took the puppy home.
He loved it, fed it well, played with it, and the puppy grew and thrived. And it grew … and grew … until by last week, it weighed 176 pounds (80kg)! I once had a Rottweiler-border collie mix that grew to about 120 pounds, and he was a BIG dog. Funny, he always thought he was still a lap-puppy. Anyway, it turns out Mr. Yang’s puppy was no puppy, but an Asian Black Bear! Now, by this time, surely Yang had realized that this was no canine, but … well, you know how it is … you live with an animal for a while, say an hour or so, and you’ve fallen head over heels in love with it. So, Yang and the bear, whose name I cannot find, lived happily until one day a nosy neighbor saw Yang’s post on Facebook with a picture of his pet, and Ms. Nosy Neighbor called the police. Turns out that the Asian Black Bear is a protected species, and Mr. Yang was forced to give up his special pet. He was not charged, however, for the bear was found to be in excellent health (all that love will do that!) and Mr. Yang cooperated fully with the authorities. The bear has since been relocated to an animal welfare center.
And the moral of that story is: Beware of Nosy Neighbors!
A kidney for Stanley …
Stanley is the 17-year-old feline companion of Betsy Boyd, a part-time professor at the University of Baltimore. Unfortunately, Stanley was not well, and not going to live more than a few months longer unless he received a kidney transplant. The problem? The transplant carried a high price tag: $19,000! While we have, from time to time, spent thousands to save one of our moggies, a kidney transplant would definitely be out of our range, and we would have no choice but to say, “bye-bye, Stanley”. 
But luckily for Stanley, Betsy and her husband had been saving for a new car, and had just about enough for Stanley’s kidney transplant. They decided Stanley’s life trumped a ton of steel, and Stanley had his operation. Betsy is one of the few who I have ever heard echo my own sentiments …
“He’s seen me through the worst moments of my life. He’s an old cat. He doesn’t run around as much as he used to. He seems almost human to me. He’s a friend, and I believe that this friend wanted to live, so I paid for the surgery.”
Stanley is on the mend and has almost returned to his days of youth, according to Betsy …
“He purrs all the time. He begs for poultry. He wakes me up at 4 a.m. for a snack. He’s happy, and we’re still very good friends.”
And more good news … as a condition of the surgery, Betsy was asked to adopt the kidney donor, 2-year-old Jay, which brings the feline population of her household up to six! (She’s catching up!) Here’s hoping that Stanley lives to a ripe old age!
Where’s Waldo … er … Wally?
You all remember ‘Where’s Waldo?’, right? The nerdy looking guy in the red-and-white striped shirt with the big glasses who was always trying to hide in a crowd? Turns out the Brits call him Wally. Whichever. Last Sunday, 18 March, was the annual Where’s Waldo Fun Run, where people dress up in the iconic striped shirts, don nerdy glasses, and run 5k and 10k events in London’s Clapham Common.
It’s all for a good cause, as it is to raise money for the National Literacy Trust, which helps promote literacy in the UK. They said it was a bit colder this year than in previous years, but that didn’t appear to put a damper on the fun.
And while I was looking into that story, yet another about Waldo crossed my path. It seems that in January of 2017, a man wanted by police in North Yorkshire, UK, led the police on a merry chase while dressed as Waldo. Reportedly, J.J. McMenamin missed a court date for traffic violations. Now here, that is not such a big deal and the police wouldn’t do more than send you a letter, most likely, but in the UK, it must be a bigger deal, for police spent the better part of the weekend looking for J.J. and even resorted to sniffer dogs and a police helicopter, according the BBC.
Ol’ J.J. had quite a sense of humour and a bit of bravery thrown into the mix, also. He dressed up as Waldo and taunted police via his Facebook account, posting pictures of himself and writing such things as, “Dude … I’m right here.” And in another, “Buddy if they really new [sic] how close they are too me, not a scooby do where I am. Even got sniffer dogs out and I’m still sat giggling.”
Eventually, J.J. decided to stop kidding around and turned himself into police, but not before posting a Facebook Live video showing himself being driven to the police station dressed as Waldo. No word on how much jail time, if any, he served, but there is an update. In June of 2017, police were once again looking for Waldo … er … J.J. … this time on a bit more serious charge of “possessing drugs with intent to supply”, and they are once again unable to find him.
For want of … Sesame Seeds?
And this one happened by as I was digging into J.J.’s escapades … who could resist digging a bit deeper into this headline:
Naked man accused of home break-in just wanted “sesame seeds for his hamburger”
It happened in Largo, Florida, where a resident awakened on the morning of 05 January 2017 to find a naked man in his kitchen! He managed to force the man outside, then called police. Martin R. Henderson, 48, of Largo, told officers he had been smoking “spice,” or synthetic marijuana, and used a butter knife to pry open the door of the mobile home about 2:30 a.m. Poor Mr. Henderson … all he wanted, he claimed, was to “get sesame seeds for his hamburger.” Stay away from that synthetic wacky weed, folks!
Okay, my dear friends … I see by the clock … oh wait, that one hasn’t been changed yet. Yes, I know it’s been two weeks, but you see … I have to move all the kitties toy boxes, a very heavy solid wood table and a television set just to get to the bloomin’ clock! Anyway, it is time for us to all disperse to our various jobs. I leave you with this thought … times are tough everywhere, and people aren’t always feeling very “up”, but a smile or even a hug sure can help bring the sun out, even if only for a little while. So go out there and share your radiant smiles, give a friend or coworker a hug, “just ‘coz”. Keep safe and have a great week!
The infamous Charles Koch, head of Koch Industries, is still doing business in Russia today. No matter how many lives Russian dictator Vladimir Putin takes in his unprovoked war against Ukraine, to Mr. Koch, profit is far more important. Yesterday, Koch’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Dave Robertson released the following statement:
The bandwagon everybody is jumping on – blaming President Biden for rising fuel prices – has four flat tires and the only gas powering it is the hot air that emits from the mouths of the brainwashed and the ignorant. The reality is that the price per barrel of oil has been decreasing of late, while prices at the pump are steadily increasing. Now, even a child could figure out that there is a disparity somewhere, that there’s some money unaccounted for … let’s give the oil companies a chance to ‘splain, shall we?
So why does daylight savings time exist? No, not to torment those who like their sleep. The idea was first advocated seriously by London builder William Willett in the pamphlet, 
Interestingly, until recently only about 16% of counties in Indiana observed daylight savings time. The reason? The cows … and chickens. Indiana is an agricultural state, and the farmers found that if they changed the milking and egg-gathering times by an hour, the cows gave less milk and the chickens produced fewer eggs, so they balked and generally refused to change their clocks twice a year. To add to the confusion, Hoosiers don’t refer to it as daylight savings time or central standard time, they refer to it as ‘slow time’ and ‘fast time’. To this day I am not sure which is which! And, if you are driving through the state, it might be 2:00 where you are now, then a mile down the road it’s 3:00, then a few more miles and it’s back to 2:00. All very confusing!
I have been grumbling about needing a new phone for more than a year now, but dreaded actually getting one because of all the hassle involved with getting settings, apps, etc. set up just the way I wanted them. PLUS … today’s technology confounds my old brain and I have no clue what half the stuff on the new-fangled phones is even supposed to do. But yesterday I finally bit the bullet and bought a new phone. I found the key to making the process relatively painless: tell your grandchild what you want the phone to do, how you want it to do it, then let her pick out just the right phone for you! Then, when you get home with it, let her set up the apps and adjust the settings!
Filosofa's Word 